This project was off Eight Mile Road in Stockton. Mark from Blue Iron, Inc., www.blueironinc.com, called and asked that I repair the cracks, there were several.

This was a crack around the lift pin boss

I used an air arc, or arc gouging process to clean out the crack. Sometimes the crack does not go all the way through the material and it is imperitive the crack is removed from the material or gouged out then welded up completely.

Same crack repaired.

Some welders like to use the Stick welding process , SMAW, to weld these cracks up typically a rod with the 7018 designation. This process is adequite, it provides a strong weld and when done properly the crack should not come back. However it has one down fall and in my opinion only one, its speed. I was able to utilize the wire welding process, FCAW, I used NR 232.

Anothercrack in the same bucket

Crack welded up

Another view of cracks welded up.

There were a total of 12 seperate cracks with a total of about 55 – 60 lineal inches combined. This project was completed 2 – 3 hours faster because I used the FCAW process instead of the SMAW process.

This grapple is used on an excavator at a transfer station. Vito Trucking out of Modesto uses it to load a green waste grinder. They called because it was cracked. It was critical that their excavator be up and running soon. Two of us were able to work on it and it took about 12 man hours to complete. We were able to get them back on track and they were using the excavator that evening.

I gouged out the crack and in so doing the two pieces of the pivot pin boss seperated, they were only held together by about 1/4″ of material. It was very important that the two be put back together tightly so there were no gaps between the two pieces of material and so there would not be any added stress from the two arms being different lengths.

This is a picture of the grapple from the inside and you can see quite extensive cracking.